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Mistaken Lessons From 2008’s Financial Crisis

9/6/2013 10:56AM

It’s been five years since the Panic of 2008. But if you’ve been investing with a foxhole mentality, you’ve probably forgotten why you should be investing in the first place, Chuck Jaffe says. Photo: Getty Images.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

I ... I ... in wides years since the panic of two thousand and eight ... for most ordinary investors ... spent five years since there are really buying stocks is well but have you been investing with a Fox hole mentality ... Prada forgotten why it'll get in the stock market the first place ... that is what MarketWatch's Chuck Jaffe is here to talk about today ... the ... checkout guy I've I've noticed a Fox hole mentality the last five years ... people haven't yet I mean it's ... been so boring when you talk to ... money managers and painful to work with consumers retail invests Durer's ... their thought about how scared folks are ... and the truth is ... you can always find a reason to talk yourself out of investing it's it's pretty easy I mean he'd ... yell hey this year on or invest because ... well we just had the crash and its euro invest because ... well you've got these concerns over Europe are now you can say they ... the markets ... too high it's moved up without me and we got his concerns about Syria or what can happen with tapering you can always find a reason I knew you could look in my office in the other direction there's a big chart that shows the market for like the last eighteen eighty five years there's always little data points on it and each one of them virtually every single one on there over eighty plus years ... you could say hey ... that's the reason not to invest ... the reason not to invest ... but over eighty five years ... the confirmable Arkansas might mess ... it is so flat out the bombs in a note you need to participate ... but over the last thirty years some ideas to levels offered huge there are gigantic ... and your average investor and you lost money in two thousand and two thousand and eight ... you lost money it's one thing for traders to lose money in the history again for the investor you lose that money is gone ... yes but let's go the other way ... you decided in two thousand you wanted to get out of the stock market and you're going to rely on your house ... to be your nest egg than your plan was hey ... I'm gonna retire somewhere around two thousand ninety thousand ten ... all move to a smaller home and I'll use my house is the way to make my ... portfolio ... well you got a good time and on the financial crisis is well and congratulations you don't lose a penny and stock market in your house to dislike most in this country ... it ... took a significant hit in value and now he needed the solid union have that either so it's not like you can say ... oh well ... Gee I can avoid this we must remember to that ... if you got to two thousand while you felt every penny of the last the truth is that in the nineteen nineties and as most folks would be open to getting your they were sent ten percent ... never getting twenty ... so ... yes ... they lost all of their peak but they were still in in any case is way ahead of the game ... so it's on how you wanna look out if you're gonna insist on looking at the glasses being half empty begin applying lots of reasons to not to invest in all of them ... I ... what one getting one it's too late and that's a problem the Tokyo the idea that ... I know as soon as I go fully in ... this thing is gonna turn on me I know I'm a retail investor we had terrible timing ... as soon as I get involved I know this isn't a crash on ... you know Paul I spoke to the stock market yesterday and actually told me it was waiting specifically for you to invest ... in a minute that you know it and ... it's straight to the toilet ... you know the truth is timing is coincidental the market does not actually know when you're gonna need to take money out to pay for all wedding and college tuitions ... or your own retirement ... and the point of that is ... that you could always do that I mean ... if you had been fortunate enough ... to put your money in right ... at the ... bottom into thousandnine when putting it in because it's an area I know that the market's going when I get in the markets can ago finally These and Questalot has that doesn't work and if that were theoretically true working both ways ... is people wanting to make more things that ... I get it you can watch lotsa commercials that'll tell you that no matter how use it for your TV this weekend ... you can influence the outcome of your favorite NFL team by the Robin your ear or whatever but that's the stock market equivalent of ... that you put your money in ... it's not can make the market do anything ... yet he may have lousy timing ... but your timing will be irrelevant if he stressed that I ran out long enough ... and you're not retiring tomorrow that I know I wear